I left work a little early today; I’d spent the morning stripping the wax off the bathroom floor, and I just wanted the afternoon off…because. Anyway, I had seeds I wanted to cold-stratify, and when I got here, I had a bunch of roots from the guy in WV. The seeds came from Everwilde, and I did:

Heath aster
New England aster
Sky blue aster
Showy aster
Aromatic aster
Smooth blue aster
Anise hyssop
Joe Pye weed
Showy goldenrod
Purple coneflower
Fireweed

I didn’t do all of the roots because the bee balm and milkweed don’t fit in 5 ounce cups, but I did the rest.

11 Dutchman’s breeches
10 Squirrel corn
10 Dwarf larkspur
11 Wild geranium

The two in front are Bird of Paradise: 4 Nicolai and 6 Reginae. Obviously, they’ll go inside.

I wondered what was growing in with my Ardisia. I recognized the grass, of course, and thought the other thing must be a weed seed left over from the last time the tree was outside for the summer. Nope! It was…The Little Hypoestes That Could. I have one in the Peperomia, which was no surprise because it was right next to the Hypoestes, but the Ardisia is 2′ away. Unmistakable, though; I certainly don’t have any other plants with pink-dotted leaves!

Poor Ol’ Kitteh! OMFGLOL hilarious, but poor Ol’ Kitteh!

Der Cindeh,

Ah wod lik 2 by a litel pees ov ah-loom-ee-numz, pls. Ah mus’ mak a gard in frunt ov mah fahr plas. Ah seemz 2 haz skorsh mah ass. Ah warmz mah yarbles by mah fahr plas an gotz 2 clos. Wundrd wat waz funy smellz…

Allz bestz,
Ol’ Kitteh

Only these so far, but it’s a start! Minor cardiac arrest today; I think Everwilde closed their ebay store. I had a bunch of stuff in my cart, but none of it was available! All the asters I’d wanted, plus other stuff…gone! Thankfully, they have a website, and the only thing that was actually sold out was Lobelia cardinalis, which isn’t hard to find in quantity at a reasonable price. I got the rest, though; if I can get 2000 seeds for $1.99, I’m for damned sure not going to pay $1-plus for 100 seeds! Anyway,  here’s what’s currently chillin’ in the fridge.

I also planted a few common rue seeds. I’ll put most of them outside, but thought I’d try a few on a heat mat. The bag is a couple of seeds I found in my last bag of California Cuties; they’ve been there about a week. I guess they’ll be…mandarins of some sort? I’m sure they came from something grafted to something else, but all I want are the leaves anyway, so it’s worth a shot!

I did end up planting the columbine in the bed by the patio. I also forgot I’d stuck some lily of the valley roots that were “questionable” in there yesterday. Each cup marks a columbine, and the broken bit of brick that is effectively invisible marks the lily of the valley.

I had the brilliant idea yesterday to extend the patio bed to wrap around the tree and join the snakeroot, but that’ll be 35 bricks around, times however many high I want it, and will involve a bunch of dirt I don’t yet have, so it’s going to wait.

Someone needs to tell the tulips it’s the 8th of February. They won’t bloom, but I don’t care about tulips, so I’ll move them to sun when I get around to it. Maybe.

Peonies are well-mulched with leaves, and busy beneath. I don’t care about peonies, either, but may move them someday. They do get enough sun to bloom, so meh.

I know who’ll miss the straw once it becomes mulch!

It took one bale, but my new plantings have about 3-4″ of dead leaves and 6-8″ of straw over them. In a protected area like that, I think they’ll be okay. Either way, they’re in the ground, waiting for spring to either grow or be worm food!

Phlox, lily of the valley, and a little space for something else.

Virginia bluebell, lily of the valley, bloodroot and columbine, plus some digitalis from last year.

Random OK in Onje’s bed.

2035h. He’s Goldilocks.

I was too tired and too busy yesterday to post these, so it’s Sunday when I’m writing this, but I decided in the end to plant the little cups of roots, and the five spicebush. I put the spicebush with the existing stuff, mixing in the quarter bag of garden soil that I had, then mulched it with about 6″ of dead leaves, held in place with last summer’s flower stalks. Not pretty, but it’ll keep them from freezing, since they came from TN last week.

P scored me three bales of straw–yay! He asked D whether he knew anyone who’d deliver it, and of course, D knows everyone, so it appeared on the patio while I was down by the creek, planting. Good mechanic to have…knows everyone in the whole damned town, and always willing to help. Nice guy.

Since I had insulation in the event of freezing temperatures or an ice storm, I planted my roots that I have so far. I wanted to level the ground on the south side, by the creek, but it remained stubbornly frozen in spite of incredibly warm temperature, so I had the bright idea to use the flower beds I’d made on the west side. These are all woodland flowers, shade to part shade, and they’re all early spring blooming, so I wanted them in the ground. I spent enough on dirt last year for these beds, but the seeds didn’t grow well, so I guess I’ll get my money out of the dirt this year. I planted Virginia bluebell, lily of the valley, bloodroot and columbine in the bed with the foxglove that did finally grow.

In the bed with the hollyhock that struggled (and got eaten a bit) last year, I planted wild phlox, and some lily of the valley. The stick marks the end of the phlox, so I’ll know where I can plant something else…maybe dwarf larkspur.

Charlotte and Co. have been nibbling, but my American elderberry is leafing out. A bit early, but that’s a fairly well-protected area, and they’re native plants, so I assume they know what they’re doing.

It was a bit muddy down there.

I held back five columbine plants. I might put them in with the rest, or I might plant them up by the patio today. Probably the latter…hedge my bets a little. I love columbine flowers, and I want to see some, somewhere in my yard!

They were supposed to arrive yesterday, but thankfully, they didn’t because it took me ages to get them in their little cups, and last night was a work night.
20 wild phlox
21 Virginia bluebell
22 lily of the valley (plus some extra roots that might sprout if I plant them)

It’s supposed to be warm tomorrow, but I dunno…gonna take a lot of work to level that spot out, and I should’ve been in bed an hour and a half ago. Maybe, though, if I can find straw and get enough to insulate them.

Roughly a hundred years ago, P acquired a roll of brown shop paper towel. It lived in the basement forever, and for some reason, he didn’t throw it out, even when we moved. Today, when five dormant spicebush plants arrived bare root, I was glad! Spicebush hates to be moved once it’s planted, but it’s still too cold to put it right in the ground. If I potted it, it would probably start to grow new roots as the days get longer, but it wouldn’t have enough by planting time to keep the soil together once unpotted. My solution was to use the brown paper to line a pot, then fill with moist potting soil and a spicebush,  and unpot. Wrap in more paper, and stand up in a six pack case. I’ll need to watch that they don’t dry out, but they’ll be fairly cool by the gradge window, and I’ll re-wet when necessary. Once I’m sure the ground won’t freeze hard again, they go in the ground, paper and all, roots undisturbed. Yay! I just hope they’ll forgive being shipped in the first place. We’ll see.

Score! I went to Buchheit at lunch to get potting soil for my first wave of wildflower roots, and quickly scanned the flower seeds just because…because flower seeds. Lo and behold,  they had tons of ‘Goldfinger’ Mexican sunflower! After I paid $2.99 plus 50 cents shipping for 100 of them, but oh, well. I got common rue seeds in that lot, too, for Giant Swallowtail caterpillars. Anyway, I bought seven packs. Meant to grab eight, but I might go get more tomorrow; all in stock seeds are 25% off. Also, C got the flowering “okra” she’d told me about, and some bonus tree mallow because she said it looked like “me”. Bees love mallow, and the blooms look beautiful, so I’m all for it!

I actually got the roots yesterday, but changed my mind and decided not to use garden soil, so they stayed in their bags until I had potting soil. I got five Canada bloodroot, ten Virginia bluebell, and ten wild columbine. I have more Virginia bluebell coming, plus some other stuff, and the guy in WV from whom I got the Virginia snakeroot gave me a great shipping quote for more stuff. Anyway, this is it for now; hopefully, keeping them in the gradge by the window and not watering unless they’re really dry will hold them over until I level out the ground by the creek and get them planted (once the ground won’t re-freeze). They’ll go in Dixie cups and all so if there’s any root development, it won’t be disturbed.

I also watered my house plants tonight, and my volunteer Hypoestes is apparently happy, sharing an overcrowded pot with Peperomia because it’s blooming!

B has an RV sofa on Craigslist for $700. This dude emailed and said he wanted to pay with a certified cheque, and he was too busy to come and look at it, but would send the money and have me take out the $700, then pay for the shipping with the rest. I knew it was a scam, but said okay just to see what would happen. He sent the cheque, which arrived today…with my name on it. Return address label not the same name as he used on Craigslist, and in Topeka. Postmarked from Kansas City, MO, drawn on a Citibank in DE, signed by some random woman. At no point in time has he mentioned the name of the piece of furniture; his original email referenced “furniture”, but in this scam, they blast out a bunch of non-specific emails and often don’t know what the item actually is. Anyway,  I’m going to wait a few days and then tell him the cheque cleared. He’ll instruct me to send the $1300 balance to the “shipping company”, which is actually him (or her, I suppose), and I’ll generate a fake Western Union receipt with an online tool specifically created for scamming scammers. He’ll discover it’s fake when he tries to get the money, but by then I’ll have sent the email, telling him I knew all along it was a scam, and telling him his fake cheque sucks and so does he. Wasting a little time, but fun, and the time he spends “scamming” me is time he’s not scamming someone else!